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What is SEMrush?

Simply put, SEMrush is a product that helps you optimize your website for search engines. Founded in 2008 by Oleg Shchegolev and Dmitry Melnikov, it now features a large user base — over 5 million users, according to the company — and is one of the most popular SEO tools currently available.

SEMrush works by giving you a lot of information, which you can use to either:

•    Create new web content that is likely to attract traffic

•    Identify link-building opportunities

•    Tweak technical aspects of your site content so that it achieves a higher search ranking.

For example, SEMrush can give you keyword suggestions (based on phrases you enter) that can be used as the basis for writing blog posts that are likely to perform well in search results.

It can also tell you how difficult it will be to rank for specific search phrases.

It also suggests websites that might be worth approaching for backlinks.

And it allows you to perform an “SEO audit” on your website to find out if there are any technical improvements you can make to it that will help you achieve better search results.

That’s just the beginning though — there are many other features provided by SEMrush that are designed to help you improve your site’s position in search results. I’ll go through these in depth below, highlighting all their pros and cons.

Let’s kick all this off this by looking at something called domain analysis.

semrush

Who SEMrush’s For

The reality is that SEMrush is not a tool for total beginners. SEMrush is for people who are serious about optimizing and growing their website and are willing to put in the work to do it.

If all you care about is tracking a handful of your rankings, then use a tool like Mangools’ SERP Watcher.

If you just want Keyword Research, you can use Wordtracker for free to get some basic level insights.

If you just want some basic competitive analysis then test out the free trial of SpyFu.

Those will all work ok if you’re just starting.

But if you have a site, are starting to see a little search traffic and you want to grow it significantly, them SEMrush is the tool for you.

Having all of your data in one place is super valuable, and more importantly, the data you’re going to get from SEMrush will be way more robust and accurate than what you’ll find from free tools.

It also syncs up with your Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools accounts to ensure you’re getting the most accurate data possible.

On top of just being a tool for blog or website owners, SEMrush is perfect for someone who is running or thinking about starting a freelance SEO business or small agency.

Bottom line, all of your competitors will be using a similar tool, so if you’re going this route, you have no choice but to invest in a premium tool like this.

SEMrush Features Reviews

SEMRush supports numerous SEO-related functions, enabling businesses of all sizes to take a more dynamic approach to keywords, backlinks, and more. For one monthly fee, you’ll get the tools you need to run more effective campaigns and analyze past results. Below are just a few of the most important features.

SEMrush Keyword Research

Both SEO and PPC campaigns depend on high-quality data, and SEMRush offers all the information necessary to optimize keyword strategies. Subscribers can view cost per click, volume, trends, and more for all search terms based on both organic and paid traffic.

SEMrush Backlink Analysis

A strong backlink profile is crucial for visibility. With SEMRush, you’ll be able to conduct deep link analyses to identify backlinks and anchor texts, measure the authority of linking domains, compare your backlink profile to competitors, and more.

SEMrush Competition Research

Similarly, SEMRush offers robust features for competition research, helping you stay ahead of other businesses in your field. You can monitor everything from keywords and copy to ad budgets and GDN strategies, and the SEMRush Organic Competitors Report lists all other domains in the top 20 on Google.

SEMrush Digital Marketing

In addition to its support for search engine optimization, SEMRush works well as a digital marketing service for both social media and content marketing.

The hands-off social media tool makes it easy to schedule future posts, analyze your performance, and more. You can use the content platform to identify topics, manage documents and deadlines, or even order content directly. These features make SEMRush significantly more flexible than tools that focus on SEO rather than other areas of digital marketing.

SEMrush Interface and in Use

The SEMRush website separates functions into five categories: domain analytics, keyword analytics, project, lead generation, and reports. You can also access some of these tools through the mobile app, available on both iOS and Android. Unfortunately, many features are limited to the website.

Support

SEMRush provides free phone support to help you troubleshoot and get the most out of the service. Unfortunately, this is only accessible Monday through Friday from 10 AM until 6 PM EST. You can also get in touch with the SEMRush support team via email.

Fortunately, there’s also an extremely detailed knowledge base that includes videos, manuals, and other guides. This area of the website covers everything from the first steps through to more sophisticated tactics for experienced users. You can view a thorough FAQ and manual for each individual tool and report in SEMRush.

position tracking

The Competition

SEMRush broadly aligns with other SEO services in terms of both pricing and tools. For example, Moz Pro, one of its top competitors, has comparable subscriptions for $99, $179, $249, and $599 per month, with each upgrade adding higher limits and new features.

It’s also worth noting that some platforms have much more affordable plans than either SEMRush or Moz Pro. If you don’t need everything included in the Pro subscription, or if $100 per month is more than you want to spend, you should consider a service with a lower barrier to entry.

SEMrush Pros

•    Does a good job in analyzing the bugs in the web page and gives good recommendations to work accordingly. Good tool to create backlinks and social promotional material.

•    You can easily see why SEMrush is trusted by so many popular sites. They have helpful information that enhances the overall site ranking and improves conversion rate.

•    Great experience as software is very advanced and covers many digital marketing needs for us and our clients, gives better understanding of the data and competitive advantage.

•    I love the fact that not only offers SEO tools to optimize your website, but you can also get a to-do list of things you have to fix on your website to deliver a great experience and rank better.

SEMrush Cons

•    It's not a "least", but it is overwhelming how much SEMrush can tell you. I felt a little lost at times using it, but knew if I spent time researching it, some of the features would make more sense.

•    They blocked my account, then refused to cancel my subscription.

•    Not every option is for our country, and gives bad results. And it get's very expensive when adding extra modules/options.

•    Sometimes their site audit tool reads false errors and makes it hard to determine what's real or not. I spent a month looking for some links that didn't exist.

semrush keyword research

SEMrush Pricing and Plans discount with coupon code

SEMrush's starting price point of $99.95 per month is for its Pro plan (an increase from $69.95 in our initial review), though you can also opt to pay $999.40 upfront for an annual plan that'll save you $200. The Pro plan gives you 10,000 results per report across both SEMrush's domain and keyword analytics tools, and up to 3,000 reports or searches per day. SEMrush also prices in terms of "projects," or every piece of SEO research associated with a particular domain. The Pro plan allots five projects, 500 keywords to track, a 100,000 crawled page limit, and up to 50 associated social media profiles along with 5 scheduled PDF reports. To SEMrush's credit, most SMBs can probably get by just fine at this price tier making it a very affordable option.

The next rung up is the $199.95 per month Guru plan, for which there's the annual option to pay $1,999.40 upfront and save $400. At this tier you get 30,000 results per report and 5,000 reports/searches per day. The big jump is in a bump to 50 total projects for the SEO team expanding their research and targeting. The Guru plan also gets you 20 PDF reports with custom branding available as well as historical data access, plus 1,500 tracked keywords, 300,000 crawled pages, and 100 social media profiles. Finally there's the $399 per month Business plan, for which you can pay $3,999.40 per year for a total of $800 in savings as compared to paying month-to-month. Aside from upping all the quotas substantially, this tier gives you unlimited projects, access to product listing ads, white label PDF reports, multi-user management and access to API.

SEMrush also offers custom solutions for businesses with special marketing needs. These include custom keyword databases, custom limits, on-site trainings, and other add-on features upon request.

Final Thoughts on SEMrush

Overall I’ve been incredibly happy as a customer of SEMrush. I use the service nearly every day and it plays a vital role in my content planning, writing, research, and marketing workflows.

If you’ve been looking for a suite of search engine marketing tools, that is extremely robust but won’t totally break the bank – then I truly think SEMrush is the best solution on the market.

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